Russia using disinfo, not meddling: Blair
PUBLIC SAFETY MINISTER NOT CONVINCED BY CSIS INTEL ON INTERFERENCE FROM CHINA
Public Safety Minister Bill Blair says he's seen no “substantial evidence” of a Russian effort to interfere in the 2019 and 2021 federal election outcomes, though the country has tried to influence Canadians' opinions.
“We have observed a fairly concerted effort among a number of hostile actors, including Russia, to engage in disinformation within our society, but not specifically directed at our electoral processes” in 2019 and 2021, Blair told the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference Wednesday.
“In either election, I'm not aware of any activity by Russia through their disinformation campaigns to influence the outcome of that election. They were influencing other types of public opinion, but I did not see evidence of it directed towards the outcome of our 2019 or 2021 elections.”
On Wednesday, cabinet ministers Karina Gould, Bill Blair and Dominic Leblanc as well as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were slated to testify during the final full day of public hearings on what the government knew and didn't know about foreign interference during the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.
During his testimony, Blair said he was made aware by the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) about alleged “irregularities” in the Liberal nomination race for the Don Valley North riding leading up to the 2019 election after candidate Han Dong was chosen by members.
CSIS suspected Chinese government officials may have been behind a group of Chinese students being bused in on nomination vote day to support Dong.
But Blair said he remained unconvinced by the service's intelligence after the briefing.
“Minister Blair was not concerned about the intelligence at the time because (1) it was not firmly substantiated; (2) it did not suggest MP Dong was aware of the irregularities; and (3) it did not suggest that the Don Valley North election results had been compromised,” reads a summary of a Feb. 21 interview between commission counsel and Blair.
Testifying Wednesday morning, Gould — formerly the minister responsible for protecting Canada's democratic institutions — said she was never briefed during or after the 2019 federal election on allegations of foreign interference in a Liberal nomination race that year.
She told the inquiry that when she was appointed minister of democratic institutions in January 2017, she faced what she called the “Obama Dilemma,” in a reference to debates within the former U.S. president's administration on if they should make a public statement on Russian attempts to influence American elections.
“The very fact of making a public comment can be seen as interference,” Gould said.
Already in 2017, Gould recalled that Russia and China, as well as India, Pakistan and Iran, were named as “threat actors, with an emphasis being put on Russia's activities,” she said in her pre-interview witness statement presented to the inquiry.
After the 2019 election, Gould was informed that CSIS had observed “lowlevel foreign interference activities by China, similar to what had been seen in the past.” She said she was not briefed on the alleged irregularities about the Don Valley North nomination process before the election.
But a security brief prepared for Gould dated Oct. 29, 2019, showed that “China remained interested in supporting candidates and individuals who it perceived would benefit China's overall strategic interests” and that there were “limited specific incidents” that suggested foreign interference.
One of them was specific to Don Valley North, although Gould told the inquiry she was never told of specific foreign interference concerns, including in the Toronto riding.
Over two weeks, the inquiry heard from political actors, senior public servants and members of the intelligence community about the alleged foreign interference that happened in the 2019 and 2021 elections, and how the internal mechanisms put in place by the government responded to them.
A reoccurring event detailed during the inquiry were warnings by CSIS that China may have been behind an initiative to bus Chinese students to vote for Han Dong in the Liberal nomination race in the Toronto riding of Don Valley North in the lead up to the 2019 election.
Witnesses described a bureaucratic and complex process for the flow of information emerging from Canada's spy agency on possible threats to elections to the task force meant to monitor the elections, but also between the task force and the campaign directors of political parties.
While senior public servants were quick to suppress a false report about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the 2019 election, Conservative officials testified they were left to themselves to monitor and combat the misinformation targeting their own party during the 2021 election.
And finally, testimony from Trudeau's inner circle showed the existing tensions between the government and the intelligence community, with many questions left unanswered on what the prime minister knew about instances of foreign interference in past elections before media leaks.